Auditor&#39;s combination-report.



' N. F, GARBO. AUDITOR'S COMBINATION REPORT.

APPL IOATION FILED SEPT. 17, 1900.

Patented July 26,1910.

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NILS F. GARBO, OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA.

AUDITORS COMBINATION-REPORT.

Specification of Letters Patent. Patented July 26, 1910.

Application filed September 17, 1900. Serial No. 30,254.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, NILs F. GARBO, of the city of Minneapolis, county ofHennepin, State of Minnesota, have invented certain new and usefulImprovements in Auditors Combination-Reports, of which the following isa specification.

My invention relates to means whereby the collation of facts andstatistics relative to the sales of a large number of individual clerkschecks, handled by a large number of cashiers, and business done by anumber of sections or departments in large stores, may be more quickly,accurately and easily accomplished, and all the major and minor detailsof a days transactions presented in comprehensive and compact form,whereby thorough comparison and checking is made possible. Underexisting practices, the various auditors reports that are required forthe business of a large store, occupy many different book pages orsheets for each day, and these reports are quite distinct from oneanother, must be compiled separately, and are with ditficulty and onlyat great expense made to check or balance.

It is of great importance, where large numbers of clerks are employed,that the proprietor or manager should have at the earliest possiblemoment accurate figures to show the comparative work of the clerks, thehonesty of the cashiers, and the general run of the business throughoutthe various departments and sections, the latter being the barometer ofbusiness by which future purchases and the pushing of certain lines ofgoods are controlled. In large department stores it has been practicallyimpossible to make the cashiers account agree with sales by departments,the last being particularly true whenever the practice is to allowclerks to make sales in different departments under the same salesnumber. It is very important, not only that the management of a largeestablishment have exact figures showing relative sales by departments,in order that expenses and purchases may be properly proportioned anddeterminedupon, but that such figures be at hand at as early an hour aspossible after the close of each days business. This latter isimpossible when it is necessary for the auditor to duplicate ortriplicate the record of the sales checks.

The object of my invention is primarily to do away with the so-calledrecapitulation sheet, used especially in large department stores andwhich requires a great deal of time in its preparation; and a furtherobject of my invention is to provide means whereby the work of preparingthe statement may be begun as soon as any part of the sales checks fromthe clerks and cashiers have been assorted, so that the work may be keptup during the day with the result that a statement of business may beperfected soon after the closing of the doors each evening; and afurther object of my invention is to provide means whereby the variousreports which now involve so much work and trouble may be made incompact form upon a single sheet or series of sheets Whereon each saleappears but once, while results are given showing individual and totalreceipts by cashiers, total charges or sales on account, total credits,total receipts and sales by departments, and the total sales of eachclerk.

My invention requires but a single entry of each transaction, the salesor transactions being arranged according to departments as well as toclerks numbers, and in such a manner that the cashiers accounts are keptseparately from one another and from charges and credits.

My invention will be more readily understood by reference to theaccompanying drawing, forming a part of this specification and which isa face View of the report, and wherein- A.-AAA-A represent cashierssheets, B a charge and total sheet, and C a credit and total sheet. Itwill be noticed that these sheets, while they are all of the samelength, are of different widths or height. Each sheet is ruledvertically,making a large number of individual clerks columns D-DD, andalso a wide column E at the right hand end of the sheets. The sheets areof such length that there are enough of the columns D for severaldepartments, and the number of departments appearing upon a singlesection or set of sheets depends upon the amount of work that a single'auditors assistant is able to do during the day. The departments aredistinguished by heavy additional vertical lines F, which are usuallyruled in pencil or ink at the time the sheets are to be used. The reasonfor this is that the number of clerks in any department Varies from timeto time. This feature of freedom from arbitrary rulings or divisions fordepartments is a feature of my invention. The whole sheet is sheets heldby them.

spaced off into clerks columns of equal width, and the department linemay be ruled in at any point. It is obvious that in a largeestablishment .a number of sets or sections of these sheets will berequired, with substantially an equal number of auditors assistants. Butthis number is greatly less than the number of assistants required whereother auditing systems are in use.

The sheets are arranged one upon the other, and are either pinned, boundor stuck together. lVhen desired, the sheets may be separated, so thatseveral persons may work thereon, each being furnished with sales slipsor checks from a corresponding cashier or department. It is, however,seldom necessary to thus separate the sheets except in the case of aspecial sale in some one dopartment and when several cashiers are keptbusy with checks from such department.

The several sheets ABC are placed one upon the other, the upper sheetbeing narrower than the one below it, and so on to the last sheet. Eachcashiers sheet A is provided with two footing lines GH which extend thefull length of the sheets. 'In adi dition to the lines GH the lastcashiers sheet is provided with the third line I. The charge sheet B isidentical with the last cashiers sheet so far as the lines GI-I-I areconcerned. The bottom sheet is provided with lines GH and also has linesJK.

Below these lines the bottom sheet is provided with spaces L and M toreceive the numbers or names of the clerks and of the departments. Atthe left-hand end of the sheet is a wide column N wherein thedescriptions are Written or printed upon the footing lines of theseveral sheets.

The use and operation of my invention is as follows: As soon as thestore is opened in the morning the cashiers begin to receive checks fromthe clerks. These checks are bundled together from time to time duringthe day and are taken to the auditing room. As soon as the checks beginto come in, the auditors sort the same according to depart ments, and asthere are very few departments compared with the number of clerks thesorting of checks is quickly done. The sorted checks are given to theauditors according to the sets or sections of record The Work of makingup the comblned record may then proceed immediately, the auditorstransferring the amounts from the sales slips to the proper sales columnand cashiers sheets, or charge or credit sheets, as fast as the checksor sales slips come in. As a usual thing, the auditor will, beforebeginning to put down the amounts from the slips, run through the slipsand transfer the clerks numbersto the spaces L, and Will also put downthe numher or name of the department at the foot of the bottom sheet. Insetting off the space for a department the auditor usually leaves anumber of spare columns D to receive the numbers and sales of clerks whomay be transferred to the department at any time during the day. At theclose of the days business all of the items in each department and uponeach cashiers sheet are added together and the total is placed in thespace X on the line H in each instance. These are the total cash sales,credits and charges, and appear at the lower right-hand corners of theseveral figured department spaces upon the cashiers sheets. As beforeexplained, there are several departments represented upon each cashierssheet, and these totals are footed horizontally on the lines H and intothe columns E of each cashiers sheet. If there is a discrepancy in anycashiers account, it may be quickly found by checking over theparticular sheet belonging to such cashier. The footings upon thecharges and credits sheets B and C are treated in a like manner and mustbalance with the account in the general ofiice. After the cash isbalanced the department totals X upon the several sheets are footedvertically and the totals of sums upon sheets AA-B for each departmentare footed upon the line I of sheet B, showing the total sales for eachdepartment, and these, when footed horizontally upon the line I, showthe grand total of sales for all the departments appearing upon theparticular set or section, such totals being in the column E. The totalcredits for each department, appearing in the spaces X, sheet C, arethen subtracted from the sum at the bottom of sheet B and set down uponthe line K, sheet O. The figures on the line K are then footedhorizontally into the column E, showing the net sales for all thedepartments. After these steps have been performed, each clerks column Dis footed, the totals appearing upon each cashiers sheet, line G. Theclerks totals upon all the sheets will then be footed down upon the lineI upon the last cashiers sheet, after which the charges appearing uponsheet B will be added to the totals on the line I and footed on line Iof sheet B, following which the credit totals of clerks will be footedon line G of sheet C, then subtracted from the totals on line I of sheetB, the remainder being footed on line J of sheet C. The cross-footingsof clerks totals correspond to the cross-footings for cashiers creditsand charges. When a number of sections of my sheets are used, the totalsin the columns E thereof may be transferred to a special summary, or maybe added upon any of the sections.

The principal work connected with my combined record is in transferringthe detail amounts of sales. This work may be carried 011 throughout theday, and the summarization of the report occupies but little time,

so that the report may always be completed and ready at an early hour inthe evening.

Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secureby Letters Patent:

1. An auditors combined report, comprising cashiers sheets A-A, eachhaving footing lines GI-I and one sheet having a footing line I, chargeand credit sheets B and C, the former having footing lines G-HI, and thelatter lines G-H and also lines JK, said cashiers and charge and creditsheets being each of different width from top to bottom whereby theirrespective f0oting lines will be exposed when the sheets are placed oneupon another, and said sheets also having vertical rulings and dividedalso vertically by heavy vertical lines into groups, and also havingvertical descriptive columns and similar columns for the horizontaltotals, substantially as described.

2. An auditors combined report, comprising cashiers sheets AA, eachhaving foot ing lines G-I-I and one sheet'having a footing line I,charge and credit sheets B and C, the former having footing lines GI-I-Iand the latter lines Gr-I-I and J-K, and also having spaces L and Mbelow said footing lines, said cashiers and charge and credit sheetsbeing each of different width from top to bottom whereby theirrespective footing lines and the spaces L and M will be exposed when thesheets are placed one upon another, and said sheets having verticalrulings and divided also by heavy ruled lines into groups of columns,and said sheets also having vertical left-hand descriptive columns andsimilar right-hand columns for the horizontal totals.

3. An auditors combined report compris ing a series of sheets placed oneupon the other with their upper edges even with one another, said sheetsbeing of the same length horizontally and having a series of horizontalrulings but being of different widths from top to bottom, and eachhaving two footing lines exposed at the bottom of the sheet, and some ofsaid sheets having additional footing lines, and all of said sheetsbeing provided with a series of vertical rulings dividing them intovertical columns designated re spectively for the different clerks, andsaid vertical columns being divided at intervals by vertical rulingsinto sections, substantially as described.

In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name this 11th day ofSeptember,

NILS F. GARBO. In the presence of- C. Gr. HAWLEY, M. E. GOOLEY.

